The problem with that is that if the virus gets into someone who's unvaccinated and mutates into a form that can bypass the immunity given by the vaccine we're all going to get spotty and possibly dead.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

What happened to the surgeon who published the Lancet article? I don't think we should punish research errors, but it sounds like he was incredibly negligent or criminally fibbing. Considering the effect of his paper on public health, should he face public charges, which might in turn reduce his adherents.

The problem with that is that if the virus gets into someone who's unvaccinated and mutates into a form that can bypass the immunity given by the vaccine we're all going to get spotty and possibly dead.

The other problem is there are genuine people, such as the immuno-compromised, that can't receive the vaccine. These people rely on folks with hardier immune systems to be vaccinated so they have less of a chance of acting as carriers of the disease even if they don't progress to having actual symptoms.

brimed03:What happened to the surgeon who published the Lancet article? I don't think we should punish research errors, but it sounds like he was incredibly negligent or criminally fibbing. Considering the effect of his paper on public health, should he face public charges, which might in turn reduce his adherents.

Check the Wikipedia article I linked to earlier. He lives in Austin with his wife and kids (which I bet aren't vaccinated) and still believes his research was completely correct.

brimed03:What happened to the surgeon who published the Lancet article? I don't think we should punish research errors, but it sounds like he was incredibly negligent or criminally fibbing. Considering the effect of his paper on public health, should he face public charges, which might in turn reduce his adherents.

He had his medical license revoked for that paper and everyone involved repudiated it. That's probably the right response.

Like, for example, having an anti-vaxxer parent learn first hand that death or recovery are not the only two outcomes of Vaccine-preventable diseases. Sometimes, they just live their lives with crippling neurological disabilities thanks to Measles Encephalitis.

We, in the modern world, have become unacustomed (thankfully) to the scenes that plagued the United States in the 1920s and 30s, namely of Children's hospitals overflowing with people dying from diseases like Diptheria, Polio, and Whooping Cough. In a way, vaccines therefor have become a victim of their own success.

QFT. I knew a kid growing up who caught measles at the age of four (this was in 1982, so somewhat unusual, but his parents were Steiner followers) -- he didn't die, but he was permanently and severely brain damaged by encephalitis. Ten years later, he still couldn't speak. And yes, anti-vaxxers' children will suffer the most, but they'll have a lot of incidental victims as well -- people who are immunocompromised, who are allergic to vaccine components, too young for vaccination, or whose vaccine simply didn't take, because once in a while a vax just won't work and the recipient ends up relying on herd immunity.

odinsposse:brimed03: What happened to the surgeon who published the Lancet article? I don't think we should punish research errors, but it sounds like he was incredibly negligent or criminally fibbing. Considering the effect of his paper on public health, should he face public charges, which might in turn reduce his adherents.

He had his medical license revoked for that paper and everyone involved repudiated it. That's probably the right response.

He also lost a large libel case and was ordered to pay the court costs of several hundred thousand pounds.

The problem with that is that if the virus gets into someone who's unvaccinated and mutates into a form that can bypass the immunity given by the vaccine we're all going to get spotty and possibly dead.

The other problem is there are genuine people, such as the immuno-compromised, that can't receive the vaccine. These people rely on folks with hardier immune systems to be vaccinated so they have less of a chance of acting as carriers of the disease even if they don't progress to having actual symptoms.

This. Additionally, the vaccine doesn't "take" with everyone that's vaccinated, some 'immunity' still allows the vaccinated person to carry the disease at a transmissible but still symptomless level, similar to how many people that acquire immunity by getting a disease and recovering work. And some people don't obtain any degree of immunity at all.

You can sort of think of relationships as a web, with people in contact with a limited number of others to a degree that they can serve as vectors, those people in contact with a similarly limited group of different people, and so on. Vaccinations just block a fraction of the nodes of the network, making the path from one susceptible node to another longer and thus less likely to be traversed by the disease. It's not a magic wand that makes everyone it touches completely immune. Cutting the number of people vaccinated puts the vaccinated people in as much danger as the idiots who forgo it completely.

You know, there are too many people in the country, and there needs to be some way of lessening the burden on our finite resources. I used to think that we should SAVE EVERYONE but now I realize the it might just be OK to let some people go.

Shedim:brimed03: What happened to the surgeon who published the Lancet article? I don't think we should punish research errors, but it sounds like he was incredibly negligent or criminally fibbing. Considering the effect of his paper on public health, should he face public charges, which might in turn reduce his adherents.

Check the Wikipedia article I linked to earlier. He lives in Austin with his wife and kids (which I bet aren't vaccinated) and still believes his research was completely correct.

There's no way he believes the research was correct, unless he's completely delusional. And we can't rule that out. It's probably more accurate to say he believes the findings were correct, but he was already convinced of that before he started.

Our pediatrician's office won't see kids whose parents refuse to vaccinate them- and that's one of the reason I like them so much. They also have two waiting rooms- a well room and a sick room- so it helps keeps the kids just coming for their check-ups from getting sick during flu season. People just get dumb about their kids and suddenly think that they are smarter than scientists and doctors- and so many young parents today have never seen the consequences of these diseases, so they think the measles or mumps are like a bad cold. Both of my kids got their shots on Tuesday, and I'd rather deal with a day of discomfort than weeks of illness.

Yes please:Shedim: Check the Wikipedia article I linked to earlier. He lives in Austin with his wife and kids (which I bet aren't vaccinated) and still believes his research was completely correct.

There's no way he believes the research was correct, unless he's completely delusional. And we can't rule that out. It's probably more accurate to say he believes the findings were correct, but he was already convinced of that before he started.

He believes that everything acting against him is a conspiracy from "Big Pharma" to "crush any attempt to investigate valid vaccine safety concerns," because protecting false beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence is easier than admitting you're wrong. The man really seems to believe his own research and claims it was reproduced in five other countries, though he obviously won't name which ones.

brimed03:What happened to the surgeon who published the Lancet article? I don't think we should punish research errors, but it sounds like he was incredibly negligent or criminally fibbing. Considering the effect of his paper on public health, should he face public charges, which might in turn reduce his adherents.

It was fifteen years ago. If the fact that his research has been totally discredited by dozens of better studies before and since haven't "reduced his adherents", nothing done to this idiot at this late date is going to do it.

The thing is, parents of autistic children--and those terrified their kids might become autistic--are desperate to believe that there is one discrete cause of autism, because that implies one discrete cure. And that means someday their kids will be normal.

dmax:You know, there are too many people in the country, and there needs to be some way of lessening the burden on our finite resources. I used to think that we should SAVE EVERYONE but now I realize the it might just be OK to let some people go.

/not really joking//can't help someone who won't help themselves

I'm starting to think that when I meet new people I should ask them if they are vaccinated against the usual, and if they say no, I'll just tell them to call me when they are.

The part that really confuses me is the number of people who will take themselves to any number of doctors for all kinds of stuff, but won't get the kids vaccinated. It ranks right up there with riding in a vehicle and not using a seat belt. More than likely, everything will be ok, but why take the chance?

There were no MMR vaccines when I was a kid. We hard barely gotten the polio vaccine when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Every one I grew up with suffered the measles, mumps, and chicken pox with no lasting effects.While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

sweet-daddy-2:There were no MMR vaccines when I was a kid. We hard barely gotten the polio vaccine when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Every one I grew up with suffered the measles, mumps, and chicken pox with no lasting effects.While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

It's probably more accurate to say that we have a much better idea of the potential dangers of these diseases - much the same way that autism seems more prevalent simple because we're better at diagnosing it. Measles, for example, can cause a number of complications including corneal scarring (which can lead to blindness) to really fun things like encephalitis. Plus, the complications tend to be more common - and much more severe - in adult patients than they are in children.

I had measles and chicken pox with no permanent damage, but the fact that it can happen is reason enough to get the vaccine.

sweet-daddy-2:There were no MMR vaccines when I was a kid. We hard barely gotten the polio vaccine when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Every one I grew up with suffered the measles, mumps, and chicken pox with no lasting effects.While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

sweet-daddy-2:. Every one I grew up with suffered the measles, mumps, and chicken pox with no lasting effects.-

how many people did you grow up with? I ask because while I don't know rates, a LOT of people ended up with debilitating reminders of those diseases. Hell, people still get shingles and even the pox more than once.

While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

It's possible, if they're allowed to mutate in the general population.

Farking Canuck:sweet-daddy-2: While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

In most cases no. In a non-trivial number of cases they can be very nasty with life-long negative effects.

Most kids that rode on speedboats 35 years ago without life jackets are fine today too. I did it as a kid. Should parents take this chance with their kids?

Hell, I remember being five years old and sitting in the middle front seat without a seatbelt while the driver was drinking a beer. And nothing bad ever happened. Therefore, that's the safest way to travel.

Yes please:Hell, I remember being five years old and sitting in the middle front seat without a seatbelt while the driver was drinking a beer. And nothing bad ever happened. Therefore, that's the safest way to travel.

I used to go up to the cottage every summer with my aunt, uncle and cousin. The kid behind the driver would get screwed every year because there'd be no leg room - that's where the beer cooler was. Had to be handy for the 4 hour drive; couldn't be pulling over all the time to get beer out of the trunk.

liverpool1892:sweet-daddy-2: There were no MMR vaccines when I was a kid. We hard barely gotten the polio vaccine when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. Every one I grew up with suffered the measles, mumps, and chicken pox with no lasting effects.While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

Farking Canuck:sweet-daddy-2: While I strongly agree with preventive vaccines, are the childhood diseases of my youth more dangerous today?

In most cases no. In a non-trivial number of cases they can be very nasty with life-long negative effects.

Most kids that rode on speedboats 35 years ago without life jackets are fine today too. I did it as a kid. Should parents take this chance with their kids?

When I was a kid, my parents were volunteer firefighters/EMTs. I used to sigh loudly at them when I'd hear "Put on your seatbelt, I've seen too many people die without them". Then I became a VFF and saw that stuff first hand. One side of my brain biatchslapped the other side the first time I told my daughter "You have to wear your seatbelt, I've seen what happens without them". And then I was involved in a pretty major accident, and had I not been wearing the seatbelt I would have, at best, eaten the windshield or possibly been ejected and ended up eating asphalt.